Ontario legal information · Ottawa and Eastern Ontario
What the page should help you decide
Meyer remains a starting point for understanding the auto threshold, but later decisions and amended legislation must also be considered.2
The threshold concerns specified non-pecuniary claims against protected defendants; it is separate from fault, damages valuation and the statutory deductible.
Keep the legal question, insurance route and next practical step distinct.
Legal question
Prove fault and compensable loss, then address the threshold as its own legal issue.
Coverage or process
Accident benefits do not depend on satisfying the tort threshold.
Practical step
Organize medical opinion around function, duration and prognosis rather than repeating statutory words.
Build the answer from records another person can check.
Collision record and identity of protected defendants.
Diagnosis, treatment, prognosis and competing causes.
Specific work, care and life activities materially affected.
Current statutory wording, examinations and consistent longitudinal records.
Protect the next real date.
Threshold evidence often develops over time, but the lawsuit deadline does not wait for medical certainty.3
Check the current indexed deductible separately when modelling a possible recovery.
How a personal injury lawyer may use this information.
General information explains the framework. Legal advice should connect that framework to the event, the people and insurers involved, the available records and the deadlines in the individual claim.
- Confirm the governing wording
- Separate threshold from value
- Build functional proof
- Check later authorities
Not every file requires every step or legal representation. The work should respond to the actual dispute, evidence gap or decision that is approaching.
Sources and legal references
These official sources provide the legal and procedural foundation for this page. Their current wording and the facts of the claim control.
View 3 sources
- Meyer v. Bright, 1993 CanLII 3389 (ON CA)
The Court of Appeal's structured approach to Ontario's automobile tort threshold.
Back to footnote ↑ - Ontario — Insurance Act
Ontario's automobile insurance, tort-threshold and uninsured-automobile framework.
Back to footnote ↑ - Ontario — O. Reg. 461/96
The regulation governing protected auto defendants, the statutory threshold and deductibles.
Back to footnote ↑